This dreary Friday night closing in on the end of his high school career had perhaps the most profound impact on G. Thomas Hedlund’s life. Just before 9:50 pm, as the television show ‘Miami Vice’ he watched with his dad went to commercial break, ‘J.J.’ heard a crack, like an M-80, echo from down by the school. A girl screamed and several minutes later, sirens blared through the neighborhood. What he originally thought to be kids screwing around at the school was much more than that. It would be ten hours before he learned the tragic truth.

His best friend of more than six years, Thomas G. Sexton, died when the car he was driving slammed into a tree by the high school. Traveling at more than 130 miles per hour, neither he nor two passengers had a chance. Tommy was 17.

J.J. fought for control of his life, struggling to accept the void and push the pain down where it couldn’t hurt him anymore. On a warm July night, he reached a breaking point. He raced his own car, a light two-passenger Honda, down Milltown Road toward Danbury, Connecticut.

He attempted to flip the car at high speeds, failed, and then resigned to the fact that perhaps it wasn’t his time yet. Shortly after than, he lost control on a relatively straight stretch of road and walked away unscathed. He felt a strong presence with him that night and wondered, really for the first time, if there truly was something more after death.

Death of loved ones never leave. They linger with us for the remainder of our own lives. G. Thomas’s writing often reflects, in its themes, this single most tragic moment in his life. Why we’re here, what we’re to do with our time, and ultimately, are we able to make the ultimate sacrifice when called upon to do so?

J.J. headed off to Michigan State University that fall and left behind one letter of his name. It wasn’t the only thing Jay left behind and would be almost twenty years before he found it again.